Busy bees in spring!

We've been busy bees over spring - adding new products and sending lots of orders out for the Christmas party season.

We were excited yesterday to receive our new picnic hamper boxes which now come with our Eco Party Box logo emblazoned along each side of the box. We think they look just fab!!

New products in store over Spring include our gorgeous eco friendly pink, green and blue invitations which come with matching envelopes with the design of butterfly, dragonfly and rocketship. Find out more here.

New tableware includes our extra small cake plates, extra large wooden gourmet pine cones, extra extra large wooden gourmet pine boats, a variety of skewers and a bigger range of colorful biodegradable straws including our Christmas design.

We've added to our range of decorations to include a bigger range of ecoGarlands and Himalayan prayer flags.

New to the list of party favors are our wooden whistles, hemp friendship bands, a bigger range of wooden ruler bookmarks, eco pens and a big selection of new mini notebooks.

We hope the festive season is a safe one for all our customers. Thanks for supporting us throughout the year

We'll be taking a break in January for a week with our last orders shipped out on December 30.

Merry Christmas.

St Mary's College Winter Sleep Out

Around 60 year 12 students from St Mary's College in Adelaide braved the cold of an early spring night last month.

They were kept warm by just a cardboard box, a sleeping bag and food served on biodegradable plates donated by Eco Party Box.

The students were taking part in a Winter Sleep Out to raise awareness of and experience for the themselves the life of homelessness in South Australia.

The four year 12 students organising the event were focused on preparing a healthy and sustainable meal, representative of  the menu from the Vincentian homeless centre on Whitmore square, Adelaide, which the girls visited with their Religion class. They also had a goal of maintaining the theme of "ecological spirituality".

We were delighted to be able to donate our products to help raise awareness for a good cause.

Judging by the pictures they had a great time and we think they would make great role models for the cause.

Healthy and Yummy Party Food and Drink

We've recently been on the look out for the perfect party food and drink.

Not that we'll be stocking it in our store, we don't want to do that, but just to inform our customers of where they can get something yummy and most importantly healthy for the party.

Living south of the city of Adelaide, in Port Willunga, we only had to look a few suburbs over in Willunga and a bit further south at Port Elliot for some brilliant party food and drink. 

The Carob Kitchen operates out of Port Elliot and sells a range of caffeine and gluten-free carob chocolate with no added sugar. This includes their Banjo Bears (a better Freddo frog). We recently discovered that cacao, cocoa and all milk chocolate are pretty bad for our bodies. They contain Theobromine which is a neurotoxin. So give carob chocolate a go for your next party - it's really yummy!

As far as the healthy drinks go Willunga is home to Mojo Kombucha - a certified organic health drink from Organic and Raw. Described as an ancient handmade elixir that is created by a unique fermentation recipe it is like a probiotic and flushes out the body's toxins.

So hooray for the clever people making delicious and healthy party food and drink in our part of the world!

Sunnie's Ballerina Party

Its August and in our family we are lucky to have 3 birthdays to celebrate. That means lots of cake! To start off the month our gorgeous daughter Sunnie turned 6 and she wanted a ballerina-themed party.

I started off scouring the internet for ballerina party ideas (see the collection we collated at our Pinterest link here). Our goal was to find ideas that we liked and suited our home and where possible make them eco friendly. As the Mum of the ballerina girl I went to op shops and searched the house for material and trinkets.

I found some pretty pink curtains from the local second-hand store and lots of old pink sheets in her cupboard (I was saving them to make bunting) which I used to section the storage boxes off in our small backyard shed to create a little ballet studio complete with tutu hanging from the ceiling and dance costumes for the girls to dress up in. All borrowed of course.

We invited 25 children and with siblings we had 30 little ones running around. A party with this many children isn't difficult it just takes a lot of forward planning and good organising.

As we had beautiful children with a vegan appetite coming to the party we kept the food simple, healthy and wholesome. Bliss balls, popcorn, fruit salad, coconut balls (not vegan), dried figs, corn chips, guacamole dip and pizza. I made vegan pizza as well. We had two drinking dispensers which contained water in one and homemade lemonade in the other. Plus we had apple juice and flavoured mineral water in the fridge.

Sunnie's brave Dad lead the 30 children to some fun activities which included "Ballerina Says" (like Simon Says), Musical Statues, Ballerina/Fairy Quiz and a Treasure Hunt around the garden.

A Groovy Green Fair

We were recently asked by the team at dirtgirlworld to donate a prize to a school, kindy or child care centre judged the winner of "the littlest ever world environment day eco-Carnivale" held on World Environment Day - June 5.

The winner was the Alstonville Public School in New South Wales who held a Groovy Green Fair, exceededing all expectations for the dirtgirlworld crew. Here are some details: 

"Starting when the clouds lifted flooding the school with sunshine, it was a blessed beginning to our World Environment Day event. As the gates opened, enthusiastic visitors were greeted by colourful stalls selling a variety of wares from fresh produce, plants, local gourmet delights, handmade jewellery and pottery too, cakes and slices, a monster garage sale and the list goes on and on. 

Eco Ocean Party

Last Saturday we celebrated our second son's fourth birthday with an "Ocean Party". The theme transpired when our son wanted a 'shark' birthday cake.

 
We made it as eco friendly as possible decorating the home with felt and material bunting, ecoGarlands and tissue balls. We re-used as much as we could using material we already owned. So it was very much a hand-made party.

 
We decked out the back shed with blue tarpaulins and bed sheets to create an "aquarium" where the little ones could enjoy some chilled out play. We hung green material from the beams for seaweed (which grandma wants back so she can make a fairy dress for our daughter) and cut out a shark's head from cardboard for fun photos. 

Weeks before the party Mum and the birthday boy kept busy making fish and jelly fish out of eco party plates and up-cycled material. 

Donating to Sea Shepherd Australia

Sea Shepherd Australia recently got in touch asking us if we could donate some biodegradable plates, cutlery and napkins for a brunch fundraising event on the 19th of May, in which they catered for approximately 150 people.

One of our organic cotton finger puppets became a stowaway.
We miss you Tommy Turtle. Have a safe adventure!

Helping support the great work of worthy environmental organisations like Sea Shepherd is one of our goals - and considering the great work the Sea Shepherd crew do in protecting whales from illegal Japanese whaling fleets in Antarctica, all while operating as a not-for-profit group run solely on donations to run their kitchen, deck and entire ship - we were happy to help.

Currently all three of their ships are docked at a Melbourne pier while undergoing repairs from their confrontations at sea.

Their last campaign (ninth in total) Operation Zero Tolerance saw them save the lives of 932 threatened, endangered and protected whales.

dirtgirlworld's World Environment Day eco-Carnivale

June 5 is a special date on the eco calendar - the official World Environment Day.

Our friends dirtgirl and scrapboy over at dirtgirlworld are planning something a little special too.

Kindies, preschools, child care centres and schools from all over Australia are being encouraged to take part in dirtgirlworld's "the littlest ever world environment day eco-Carnivale".

This involves planning a little event - an eco-Carnivale - to hold on World Environment Day.

So what is an eco-Carnivale?
 
It’s festive and fun. It’s about celebrating our wonderful world. It’s reminding ourselves and others of the importance of caring for our environment. It’s anything you want it to be.

It could be a picnic, bike-athon, nature walkabout, games day, treasure hunt, market, music concert,  art exhibition, a dance, carnivale, dress up day or garden day.

At the end of the day Dirtgirl says it is "little kids doing little things to make a little difference".

Us here at Eco Party Box believe a plethora of eco-Carnivales all around the country are in fact capable of making a big difference - because of course they're helping to shape young minds in knowing the importance of caring for the earth while having fun doing it too. That's why we're so excited to be involved.

As well as some of our Garden Party Boxes, there are other prizes to be won and the chance to raise some money to ‘eco up’ the places where children are playing and learning. This could be a worm farm , a compost tumbler, some sustainable toys, seeds for a year, a raised garden bed, some garden tools, sprinkler system, solar powered lights, a wheelbarrow, rain water tank. It's up to you!
 
Find out more and register your kindy, preschool, child care centre or school here.

Autumn Fair Stall

Tina at the Eco Party Box stall.

We attended the Waldorf Willunga School's Autumn Fair over the weekend. Held every year at the school's Fleurieu Peninsula (South Australia) premises it was a gorgeous day, with the weather just beautiful and the vibe buzzing with a laid back ease.

There were lots of parent helpers offering plenty to eat and drink, some brilliant entertainment from some of the school and the State's most talented performers and lots of stalls to entice shoppers.

Eco Party Box had a stall too. We displayed our eco party tableware, party favours, party hats, party stationery and bunting.

The organic cotton and also alpaca wool finger puppets were popular. So were the tumbled gemstones, wooden egg maraca shakers and gum nut children.

A selection of our eco party favors available at our stall.

We had a fun time explaining to people that there is an eco alternative to disposable plastic party supplies. Many had just not considered it before.

As the school used our compostable plates and cutlery we offered to collect it in large compost bins. However despite being well labelled some plastics did make their way in to the bins.

This is one of the challenges for us: making people aware that compostable partyware is waste which has an appropriate home too, and is not just destined to be placed in a standard bin.

If it can be turned into worm food that's one less bit of litter taking up space in landfill.

Invitation To A Posh Party

It was a regal event.

Guests were cordially invited to Miss' Indiana and (sister) Harley's birthday party and naming day.

And oh what an occasion!

A rich buffet of tantalizing food catered for by a head chef. Guests greeted at the castle (jumping castle) door by the princesses and some marvellous eco party supplies were utilised to cut down on waste.

We (the Hart family) were invited too!
 
What a delight to see supplied:

• compostable plates
• reusable boutique glass bottles and biodegradable straws
• organic fruit

The little ones had a ball, the princesses had a great day and the party didn't make a huge dent on the environment.

Clean Up Australia Day 2013

The whole family can get involved.

It's time to don the gloves and get out the rubbish bags as Clean Up Australia Day is on again this Sunday.

Organiser's are hoping to top last year's effort which saw an estimated 591,400 volunteers remove 16,169 tonnes of rubbish from 7,363 Clean Up Sites across the country.

It's not too late to volunteer for this year's event at a site near you. Search in your local area by clicking here and adding your postcode.

Business Clean Up Day will be held tomorrow (Tuesday). Last year 310 businesses participated in the event. 

And Schools Clean Up Day will be held on Friday. Last year over 2,600 schools registered nationwide cleaning up the streets, school grounds, parks and waterways.